Intermezzo
by Mrs. Pollifax
Summary: Sam/Jack, Season 8, Post-Threads. Sometimes the important things happen in the space between dramas.


**Title: **Intermezzo**  
Pairing: **Sam/Jack**  
Season: **Season 8, post-Threads**  
Category: **Romance. Probably fluff.**  
Word Count: **1700**  
Summary: **Sometimes the important things happen in the spaces between dramas.**  
Notes:** My thanks to binkii822 and spacegypsy1 for collectively putting up with this for far longer and through way more drafts than something this short deserves.

* * *

She'd wandered off after breakfast, around to the opposite side of the pond and into the trees. Jack hadn't followed her then, not with Teal'c and Daniel both watching him like old ladies at a quilting bee; now, though, they were engrossed in an elaborate discussion about the Free Jaffa, about democracy and cultural heritage and the mindset of a people coming out of slavery. On a normal day, Jack would have thrown in a comment every few minutes just for the effect on Daniel, simply for the obscure pleasure of seeing the younger man sigh mightily and explain some point of history or linguistics or anthropology in the same pedantic tones he'd have used eight or nine years ago, the schoolteacher voice that had been more and more often displaced by the not-quite-soldier Daniel had eventually become.

But a day with Carter traipsing about alone in the woods at Jack's cabin – not some same-yet-alien world on the other side of the Stargate, wearing BDUs and a small arsenal of weaponry, but his own cabin, wearing jeans and a ballcap she'd snatched from his head the day before – this was not a normal day at all. Leaving Daniel and Teal'c to their imaginary nation-building, Jack faded carefully into the background and out of the building, setting off along the shore and into the overhanging branches.

The path he followed wound through the woods, passing from one property to the next, connecting a jagged line of far-distant houses. As he walked, Jack scanned the trees on either side of him; in the short time since she'd left, Carter could be well past his nearest neighbors', but she hadn't seemed to be in much of a hurry, so he expected to find her long before then.

When he approached the creek that marked the edge of his property, he finally spotted her, not standing on the small stone bridge that might have been there since before Teal'c was born, but sitting on the ground and leaning back on her hands, her shoes and socks next to her and her toes just touching the water. She was still wearing his hat; the breeze tugged gently at the exposed ends of her hair, and the picture of her resting there in the dappled sunlight was best described by words soldiers like Jack really weren't supposed to know.

His pace slowed, and then he stopped, leaning his shoulder against a tree. "The strange thing is that it looks almost normal," he said, unreasonably pleased when she didn't jump or even turn her head, enjoying his inability to pull something over on her in a way that he'd prefer not to explain to anyone, including the woman in question.

"What's that?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.

In reality, it was Carter, sitting here in his world and looking as though she owned it that somehow managed to look ordinary in a way that astounded him; but that was another thing he wasn't quite ready to say. "You, just sitting there. Doing nothing." He started walking again, closing the distance between them.

"Ah." She pushed herself up from the ground, her gaze straying briefly toward him before she gestured at the creek. "Your bridge is settling. You should probably have someone look at it. I think some of those cracks are structural."

Jack snorted. "You know, I should have known better. And anyway, it's not actually my bridge."

"I thought you should know," she said with a shrug. "So this land's not yours?"

"What you're standing on is. But it ends right about there." Jack pointed at the edge of the bank without really looking and shifted a tiny bit further in her direction, closer, really, than he should. It had been months since he'd allowed himself the indulgence. "So you're still on my property, and also, I might add, in possession of it. You know I let you take that hat, right?"

He continued to look down at her; she glanced at the ground, briefly hiding the smile forming on her face, but it still lingered as she turned her face back up to his. His answering grin appeared without thought.

"Maybe you did," she said, tilting her head, "but I'm fairly confident I could've secured it even if you hadn't."

"Are you, now?"

"Yep." She reached up and touched the brim, belatedly adding a 'sir' that was flat-out insubordinate, biting the inside of her cheek to contain her laughter.

Watching her, Jack found himself entertaining thoughts he hadn't in years, thoughts about what would happen if he broke the pattern of their little exercise, forgot the carefully drawn lines, knocked the hat off her head and buried his hands in her hair and kissed her until they were both breathless.

Carter's amused expression faded as she looked up at him, and her eyes flicked back and forth across his face. When her gaze darted briefly to his mouth, then away from him altogether, he couldn't decide whether it was anticipation, or apprehension, or just a random occurrence, so he simply continued to stare. Eventually, he decided that he'd at least reclaim the hat; he reached out a hand only to have it batted away.

"Hey!" he said with mock-indignation.

She took a step back. "I'm not done with it."

When she blocked his next attempt, a scuffle ensued in which the hat did at last come off of her head only to become the subject of a heated session of tug-of-war. He was right in the middle of a 'Carter, give me my damn hat back' when he suddenly found himself in sole possession of the object in question.

Carter, however, was suddenly in possession of his lips, one hand wrapped around the back of his neck and the other grasping the collar of his shirt. Dismissing his shock as a trivial obstacle, Jack slid his hand to the back of her head and his arm around her waist, pulling her tightly against him.

They jockeyed a bit for control, both slow to concede the earlier contest; then she sighed, her weight shifting until she leaned against him, his hand slipping from her hair to her face, caressing her with his fingertips. When his mouth wandered from hers, she turned toward his hand, her lips brushing his fingers as he kissed her cheek, her eyebrow, her forehead and finally returned to kiss her lips again.

"Sam," he whispered, his voice just a breath against the corner of her mouth, before he pulled away to look at her.

She returned his gaze, appearing as surprised and dazed as he felt; then, without warning, she shook her head and withdrew, scooping something off the ground and stepping out of his embrace. "Just tactics, sir," she said softly as she popped his hat back on her head.

Jack didn't bother to suppress his laugh. "And you think you're going to get away with that?"

"I'm fairly certain." She was smirking now, but her breathing was still quick, and with her cheeks slightly flushed and her eyes definitely a bit wider than usual, he was content to call it a draw, all things considered.

"Fine." He sat down on the embankment, pulling her down next to him and draping his arm around her shoulders. "Keep the hat."

"And here I was hoping you'd come after it again."

"Giving you a chance to trick me with the same plan twice? I don't think so. Besides, I don't need an excuse."

She didn't answer, just cocked her head and raised her eyebrows.

"What?" he asked, and when she continued to stare, he turned away, pulling irritably at the groundcover beside him with his free hand. "Look, did you … maybe you didn't mean …." He heard her exhale sharply, but he kept looking at his hand, yanking up little plants one by one; then she nudged his leg with hers, and he finally turned back. Her expression had softened, a small, sweet smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Shaking his head, he lifted his free hand to her face, gently taking hold of her chin. "Really, really don't need an excuse, Carter," he said just before he kissed her again, pressing against her until they both overbalanced and he found himself staring down into her eyes.

"It's just that it seemed like you were looking for an excuse before," she said, and he'd never heard Carter's voice sound quite like that, low and warm and throaty; he was glad for the wind and the sun and the rock now digging a bit uncomfortably into his palm, reminding him they were outside, in a relatively public place, because this wasn't something he was in the mood to rush. Without the distraction, he was pretty sure that rushing wouldn't begin to describe what would happen next.

"You seem to have taken care of that," he said, sitting up and taking the arm she extended to pull her up after him. "You've always been pretty good at solving my problems."

When he held up the hat that he'd retrieved from the ground where it had fallen for a second time, she put her hand to her head, laughing softly. Jack dropped the hat in her lap and reached up, moving her hand aside to straighten her hair, running his fingers lightly through the strands and pulling loose a few leaves. Then he brushed the dirt from the back of her shirt before settling his arm around her again, resting his head against hers.

"You know, if we go back up to the house, we can help design the new Jaffa government. Apparently, we've been fighting for the better part of a decade to make the galaxy safer for bureaucracies everywhere."

Her hand had been creeping across him toward his free one; now, she twined her fingers with his. "Kind of nice to know we can finally do those things if we want."

"Kind of is at that."


End file.
